


Leaving Limbo

by BinaBina



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Demon!Piers, Exorcist!Raihan, Graveyard Makeouts, M/M, demonic self harm it heals right up don't worry, mild body horror, raihan is Tired, slight existential angst, worldbuilding even tho it's a oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BinaBina/pseuds/BinaBina
Summary: As an exorcist, Raihan's jobs tend to be predictable. He's paid to take care of a demonic problem, said problem puts up a fight, he comes out on top, banishes them, takes the money, and that's the end of it. Demon hunting is nothing glamorous, but it's a job that needs doing, and he's good at it. He's seen everything there is to see....Almost everything.
Relationships: Kibana | Raihan/Nezu | Piers
Comments: 21
Kudos: 102





	Leaving Limbo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galaxyaesthetics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyaesthetics/gifts).



> YO HAPPY BIRTHDAY META this dark aesthetic stuff was crazy fun to write, hope you enjoy!

The call is a typical one. Frantic voice, the _please help us,_ a stammered location and a uselessly vague description of what frightened them so. Raihan lets the potential client tire themselves out, and once the circular ramblings fizzle into panting and a weak _please,_ he sighs and asks the only question that matters to him.

"How much can you pay."

The number is small, but so is the request. Banish whatever spooky little creature showed up in the church's graveyard. A demon, they swear up and down, but that's what everyone swears. Half the time it's a minor ghoul or gremlin, not remotely worth his time. Certainly not worth the pittance this client can afford to pay him. Churches and their affiliates are supposed to get discounts on exorcisms, though, so Raihan reluctantly accepts the paltry price and hides his sigh from the receiver. He'll be on his way immediately, he says, and barely waits for the client to finish expressing their relief before hanging up and dropping his phone on the bed.

Only take what a client can afford, that's one of the top items on the exorcist's code of conduct. Turns out the exorcist's code of conduct makes it really hard to pay the bills and make ends meet despite literally saving lives from ruination via demonic and monstrous interference.

Raihan didn't go through years of hellish training for the money, but it sucks when he risks his life time and time again only to come home and have himself some 4am ramen. This job nets him shitty sleep, too, but being awake is better than fitful rest rife with nightmares, because who doesn't love a little work-related trauma.

Despite his typical round of internal griping, he's out the door with practiced speed, with his silver knives, coat full of techniques, and the same tired boots he always wears to places where the dead are buried.

\- - -

He's convinced there's some cosmic law stating that cemeteries must, under any and all circumstances, be foggy at the most dramatic times. They can be counted on to have the shittiest visibility whenever it's time for an investigation or emergency exorcism. Bonus points for it being a chilly autumnal past-midnight with the bloated moon high in the sky.

Mist seeps through the iron-spiked boundary of the property, curling around his boots as he stands at the open gate. The client was kind enough to give him the key, a rusted, iron thing that fit into an equally rusted lock, whose gate swung open with surprising ease and silence.

If he didn't check out the map on his phone beforehand, he'd have no way of knowing how large this place is. All that stands before him is an impenetrable wall of white, glowing in the moonlight, spires of stone breaching and reaching to the sky like drowning men desperate for a rope.

There's no use stepping foot in here without confirming the creature's presence first.

Putting his back to his mission for just a moment, Raihan closes his eyes and activates his Sight. A new kind of black floods his vision, and when he opens his eyes the world is painted in void. All physical personality is absent. No color, no light and shadow, no depth or texture, only hollow darkness of differing densities depending on how far he casts his Sight. There's only one thing these eyes are meant to detect. Ahead of him are faint quivering lights, flecks of distant glitter in the void. The late night keepers of the church. He turns to face into the cemetery, expecting a candle's worth of soul at the most, and hisses at the blaze of fuchsia that sears his vision. Bonfire-bright, the soul is a beacon of power that can't belong to any entity that's lesser than the worst creatures to pry their way out of hell.

The client was right. This is a demon. 

His eyes start to burn, and the pressure building in his skull demands that he shut off his borrowed power. Raihan closes his eyes to ease the transition, and kneads his temples until the tendrils of darkness retreat to his peripherals, then vanish completely. The longer he keeps it active, the harder it is to shake off and go back to normal, not that there's anything normal about him. As a full-fledged exorcist, he only barely qualifies as still human.

With a resolute tug on each leather glove, Raihan draws one of his blades and steps through the thorny iron gates. The fog seems to swell, and wraps around him like a blanket swaddling a newborn, welcoming his presence and tugging him further within this stony garden of the dead.

Raihan isn't the type to look back, but if he had, he'd note that it only took a half-dozen steps before the gate became completely invisible.

Within the opaque embrace of the graveyard, it's quiet. No rustle of animals, no wingbeats of birds, not even the brush of wind. The fog shifts in his wake, heavy around his legs and clinging to his coat. Tombstones hunch into sight, creeping by and fading again as Raihan sails by, the only living ship in the silent, muffled night. He's lucky the moon is full and luminous to light his path; the pale silver diffracts across the fog and occasionally catches the reflection of the odd marble slab, markers of those whose families could splurge on something nicer. The odd wreath and half-melted candle provide some signs of life. Other people have visited this place, paid their respects, and moved on. Raihan hopes that at this late witching hour, the only person alive on these grounds is himself.

The deeper he goes, the further he steps back into time. The proud, straight markers of recent deaths mingle and fade out, giving way to lurching stone, edges eaten away beneath lichen and moss, chiseled names faded thanks to the march of time and weather. The bodies in the earth beneath his feet are no doubt crumbled to dust. Nameless, ageless in death. Nobody's left flowers around here for a long, long time.

He halts alongside a statue of an angel with chipped wings and an expression of blurry neutrality. A whisper, light and rasping. It caresses around the edge of Raihan's hearing and the hair on the back of his neck prickles. He can't pinpoint where it's coming from.

Another step. This time, as he creeps deeper into the graveyard's past, he no longer feels so alone. The pinpoint, invisible pressure of being watched pierces through the fog and all the gravestones and statues, straight as a laser beam to burn right into his chest, where his own soul burns as bright as any other. The demon knows he's here and knows he's coming. His borrowed Sight might be an ability he can only hold for a short while, but the demons it's sourced from have access to it whenever they please, and freely use their special eyes to scope out unwitting prey.

Risking the pain, Raihan blinks into the void once more. The blaze of fuchsia fire he saw at the gate is gone. Meaning—

A gust of wind shoves his hood against his head as he ducks. Something slender, dark, and utterly silent streaks through the space where his head used to be and vanishes into the fog like an eel fleeing into murkier waters. Shit, it's fast. More of a stalker type too, which is a massive pain. Raihan prefers demons that put up a fuss about fighting, gnashing their teeth and tossing their heads and boasting about _how dare a puny human interrupt my conquests, insignificant mortal, I'll pulverize your feeble body into a paste,_ yadda yadda yadda. Those ones are easy. A straightforward, head to head ass kicking and a swift expulsion from the mortal realm is all Raihan prefers to deal with.

The quiet ones are the hardest to manage, and the reason exorcists go through such meticulous training. Brute strength and power isn't everything. Anyone can learn fighting techniques and the best way to wield a silver weapon or lay traps or take a hit without getting knocked out. It's cultivating instinct and honing the senses that separates the pros from the amateurs, and Raihan in particular has the razorblade edge that allows him to work alone. Other people would only get in his way with their tense breathing and unplanned footsteps. Only a special few can keep up with him; only one other exorcist in the world surpasses his skills, but they don't matter right now. What matters now is him and this slippery little demon stalking him through the mist-shrouded shadows.

At a close range like this, he doesn't need any special vision. Fog or no fog, he could carry through the rest of this blindfolded with keen hearing alone.

Raihan adjusts his grip on his blade and keeps moving forward. No sense in staying still and allowing himself to be circled as the demon adapts to the configuration of the stone maze around them.

His ears prick at another whisper, this one louder, more of a hiss. The air is thick and cool and rubs the sharpness out of all sounds, but his enhanced hearing can recognize air flowing through sharp teeth any day. There are no footsteps, no slithers of disturbed grass, but no wingbeats, either. Every so often, the barest click on stone orients him to the position of his stalker.

It's following him on top of the grave markers. Not once touching the ground. When will it go for another lunge? Raihan's ready, all it'll take is one precise slash to cripple the thing and send it howling as the silver cauterizes its cursed flesh, and then the true hunt can begin. He might be the one being stalked, but he's not the prey here.

Maybe the creature recognizes him as a threat. Raihan smirks to himself at the idea, but it doesn't last long, because being taken seriously means the demon has the brain cells to be cautious. Great. Not only does it have a penchant for stalking, but it's smart, too.

He can sense it directly behind him, staring straight at the back of his neck, and he oh so casually paces to put a derelict mausoleum between them. Did he imagine that sigh? Personifying creatures from hell is never a good idea even if they are capable of rationale and intelligent speech (and of unique personality, and of feeling pain and joy and sorrow and rage...), but Raihan swears that sigh sounded weary.

Might as well risk it. They both know of the other's presence, after all.

"You can save us both the trouble and show yourself," he says, mist heavy on his tongue. "I know you're there."

"Tsk."

He did not imagine that. Raihan halts, knife at the ready, and at that moment the barest curl of breeze sweeps some clarity into the scene. A strange salty tang dries his mouth. Dead leaves skitter along, grazing against his boots as soft white gives way to the hard, dead edges of the cemetery.

"You're lucky I'm out of patience," drawls a voice dripped in annoyance. "Tell me, hunter, what are you here for?"

It's the most rhetorical question Raihan's ever been asked in his life. He turns around, no sudden movements, and lifts his gaze to his prey that so gracefully revealed itself.

Draped across the outstretched wings of an ancient granite angel is a demon with burning, copper chloride eyes, lidded with disdain. Limbs long sharp and slender, fingers even moreso. The most visually distinct aspect of the hellspawn looking down its nose at him is the gravity-defying mass of ink and ivory floating over and around its spindly body like a shroud. The strange hair floats and curls, languid in its entropy, tugged by invisible currents, and Raihan is reminded of the time he had to go diving for evidence and came across a corpse lodged in the muck of the lake, with tiny, sated fish weaving through the cloud of their hair. Creepiness aside, this is one of the prettiest demons Raihan's ever seen, face a delicate death mask of shadowed porcelain. It could easily pass as a succubus if it showed more skin. Who knows, beneath all that smoke-tendril hair, it might be.

...He really needs to get laid sometime soon if he's thinking this hard about a demon's looks.

Rhythmic clicks on stone. Demonstrated impatience. Those nails are like needles; no doubt they could pluck an eye out so cleanly it would be damn near painless.

"I said... what are you here for?"

Right. Business. Raihan shifts away from analysis and lifts his blade so it glints in the stuffy moonlight. The demon's eyes track every twist.

"I'm here to get rid of you, obviously."

"Why should you have to do that?" A long, thin tail of barbed bone flicks against the face of the angel. Crumbs of stone fall into its beseeching hands. "What've I done wrong?"

Don't make him laugh. "It doesn't matter what you've done. I was paid to banish you back to where you came from, and that's what I'm going to do."

The demon tilts his head. The cloud of black and white tugs and swirls, curls around the bone-pale face. "Back to where I came from, you say..."

"Yes. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

The easy way being the demon crawling down and sitting still so Raihan can perform the banishment rite. Just once in his miserable life, it would be great if a demon could play along and do him the favor.

The hard way, obviously, is forcing the demon to sit still by means of force: incapacitating it through stunning it, or tying it up, or slitting its throat and letting it writhe on the ground from the pain of silver rampaging through its wretched body, or lopping every limb off and making a neat pile of the parts so that he doesn't waste too many on an oversized banishment circle. Replenishing supplies gets expensive. It's one of an exorcist's underrated skills to be conservative with their tools.

The demon takes its eyes off the blade and inspects the rest of him. That gaze seems to reach right through his protective clothing and burrow beneath his skin, crawling through him, searching for something.

"What if I told you I'll take me own leave after I do just one little thing?" The demon raises a claw for emphasis, bisecting Raihan's view of that darkly ethereal face with a spidery finger. "That sounds plenty easy t' me."

As if he's stupid enough to allow a demon to make terms. He suspects that _one little thing_ translates to 'murder the human before me so I can make a getaway.'

"And what might your to-do list consist of," he wearily says, already prepared for some predictable nefarious twist.

The demon pushes itself up and sits atop the head of the angel statue, and Raihan notices heeled boots for the first time one rests on upturned palms. Legs cross, and an arm far longer than Raihan expected reaches forth. Raihan tenses and readies his knife, but the limb merely sweeps around and gestures at the graveyard all around them.

"What might anyone be in a place like this for?"

He's getting pretty tired of the demon answering his questions with more questions. Raihan sighs and waves his knife at a random dead guy's resting place. "Let me guess, you're here to desecrate the graves of the innocent."

In an impressive display of expressiveness, the demon rolls its eyes with its whole body, tendrils of hair lurching like a wave. To see it so annoyed brings some satisfaction. These creatures are the source of so much grief, both to humanity in general and to Raihan personally for having to deal with them, so getting under one's skin is a teeny tiny revenge that he'll savor for weeks.

"First of all, how would you know what kind of lives these corpses lived. Nobody's wholly innocent, and no graves I could disrespect would be completely undeservin' of it." The demon grinds the heel of its boot into the palm of the statue like it's putting out a cigarette. "Second of all, the only reasons anyone comes to a cemetery willingly is to bury or to mourn. Thought you'd be plenty familiar with the processes behind death, hunter."

Raihan's hackles almost raise from the sidelong threat of burial, but the complete lack of challenge in the demon's eyes keeps him calm. The demon's impatient, yes, but there's no bloodlust emanating from that spindly form, only impatience.

...You know what? Why not. This encounter turned abnormal the second the demon didn't go for his throat and opted to chat instead. Demon hunting is an exhausting job and as nice as saving lives feels, _thank you_ 's don't pay the bills, and every day it gets harder to be proud of his rescues when the death toll born of his failures—being too late, taking too long, having to choose whether or not to pull that trolley lever—rises by the year. He needs this change of pace. If it's a mistake, he'll pay for it all on his own.

"...Show me what you're here to do."

"Only if you put that thing away." The demon curls its (lush, shapely) lips and nods at the silver blade.

"You're seriously asking me to unhand my weapon around you?" he scoffs.

"Fair o' me to not wanna turn my back to someone who's achin' to cut me head off, aye?"

Raihan watches as the demon makes a show of settling down atop the statue and treating the angel like a personal throne. "I ain't movin' 'less ya sheathe that abhorrent thing."

Reluctantly, Raihan sheathes his knife. He can draw it back out in an instant should things go awry, and his hand to hand combat skills are top notch. Pleased with his compliance, the demon hops off the statue with a slow glide down, hair billowing like the gossamer veil of some eldritch bride. Not a sound is made as it touches down onto chilled grass.

"Better. Don't worry, I know ye ain't defenseless. You exorcists are a hardy lot, I've heard."

He raises a brow at the understatement. "We have to be, to deal with creatures like you."

A raspy laugh chars the air, the demon's voice black and rough like scorched timbers. "You're callin' me the creature? Ain't that a fine example of pot meets kettle."

Raihan snarls. He is _nothing_ like them. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Aye, I think I do." The demon slinks closer, hips swaying and barbed tail flicking. "It's no mystery what you exorcists are made of. Stealin' our ichor to grant yourselves an edge. Robbin' our sight for your own use. The stuff in your veins ain't all human, love, not anymore. Even if I couldn't smell it on ya, I'd be able to see it in yer eyes. They're so much like mine, after all."

Before he can muster a rebuttal, a curse, anything, the demon smirks—wicked and infuriatingly playful on such a touchy subject—and turns away, and Raihan realizes far too late that he allowed it close enough to slit his throat in a blink if it so chose. What a rookie mistake, he's better than this.

He should know better than to let any creature get under his skin like that. There's not an exorcist alive who isn't fully conscious of their in-between status. It's the price they've all chosen to pay for the strength to protect what's dear to them.

The exorcist shakes his head and stalks to follow the alluring sway of a sharp tail.

Throughout a silent stroll, broken only by the occasional crunch of a leaf underfoot, he's led to a corner of the cemetery so old that the church has long given up on maintaining it. Gnarled trees and bushes snag at him, and the tombstones jutting from the ground are so broken and uneven in the lumpy earth that he's forced to take his eyes off the demon leading him and watch his step instead. Dancing on the top edge of his peripherals, wispy monochrome undulates and ripples, both shooing away and inviting the fog to mingle.

In the privacy of his own morbid thoughts, Raihan wonders what it might feel like to pull his gloves off and stick his hands in there. Would it be soft? Immaterial? Would it wrap around his hand like cobwebs and snare him closer? Every part of a demon can be weaponized, he knows better than to assume any part of their anatomy is decorative. He's got the scars to prove his past mistakes.

A sharp rustle jerks him from his musings.

"Here."

The demon lowers to its knees, cloud of hair sinking like ink dripped into water.

Tucked within brambles overgrown from years of neglect is a grave marker Raihan would have considered to be a normal rock if it weren't given special attention by any entity. Consumed by hoary lichen, it's unremarkable, small, hardly a lump poking from the earth with no discernable carvings that would make an identity known. Must have been here for hundreds of years.

"This is what 'm here for..." the hellspawn says, claws extending to delicately knock debris away.

Interesting... This demon has sentimentality strong enough to risk proximity to a holy place like a church. Raihan's seen this oddity before, from monsters gone mad in the throes of their birth. Older, more experienced demons love to cause chaos by forcing their blood into humans, triggering a transformation that either kills the person, or, if they manage to survive being devoured from the inside out by demonic essence, drives them utterly insane. In such a state, the victims lash out at anything that moves, seeking destruction to vent their pain, but are still capable of acting according to their deepest desires, and heeding their deepest connections. He's personally witnessed cases where the only survivors of such an event are the loved ones of those who were forced to become monsters.

Similar as it may be, this here is different. This demon is sane, as far as any entity from hell can be called sane, and expressing care over... what?

The better question would be: Who?

Raihan clears his throat, and asks if it was a friend. The demon shakes its head. An enemy, then? Also denied.

"Can't have been family," he says, because demons have none. "Who's buried here?"

"No one." With a sigh that sifts like sand over an unearthed tomb, the unholy being rises. "There's nothing here. Should be, but there's not."

A stolen body, then? A falsified burial? Why invest such attention into an empty grave? Not friend, not family...

"Don't tell me," he breathes, and the forlorn slope of sharp shoulders lends credibility to his theory, as absurd and crazy it might be. "Was this you?"

It's no secret that demons can spawn monsters by forcing their blood into human bodies. Like a raging virus, it devours one's humanity from the inside out and permanently stains their soul into something unstable and corrupt. In moderation, it's possible to temper the effects into something advantageous. It's what exorcists do, after all. Taking precise, careful amounts of demon blood into their own bodies, suffering through the pain, staying just this side of sane, sacrificing their human integrity for the sake of becoming weapons to fight the monsters whose essences their strength relies on.

For a person to go through a full transformation without being driven into a mindless, raving ghoul... He never would have thought it possible. The mental fortitude, the sheer amount of suffering involved...

The demon nods, and the confirmation of the impossible knocks the wind out of him. If all this is true, he needs to report this, share this information, because it'll rock the world of every exorcist and send the researchers scrambling. No one's survived the process of one drop too many, before. It's wholly possible this demon is lying, putting up a trick just to get Raihan to feel sympathy and not decapitate it, but his gut is telling him that this is no lie.

Raihan always trusts his gut.

"Still wanna send me back to where I came from?"

Hah. Funny, now. Raihan shakes his head, and slowly kneels. His guard isn't completely lowered, but it feels like the right thing to do, to join this bastard creation in paying respects to the life it was forced to leave behind.

He can sense the demon's surprise and suspicion as he reaches into his coat and extracts a small glass bottle of cordial. It's expensive and he loathes to part with it all in one go like this, but it's the only thing he's got that's remotely appropriate for gifting a grave. He tears the tiny cork out and tips the heady alcohol upside down, amber streaming straight down and spattering into the brush.

A curious hum. "Ain't never had someone pour one out fer me before. Coulda just passed it to me to drink, I'd have appreciated that just the same."

He tucks the emptied vial back into his coat with a wry smile. "Paying respects to the dead is one thing. Even if you used to be human, I don't think I could call myself a proper hunter if I gave a demon treats."

"Now that's no fun. Would you change yer mind if I rolled over and begged ya?" it chuckles. "I can be quite a good boy if given the proper incentive..."

Raihan gets to his feet and backs off. He does not need that kind of temptation dropped into his lap, because tonight has been crazy enough and there's only so much he can excuse himself for breaking every rule of common sense an exorcist has. There's more important things at hand, like finding out more about this anomaly's—no, this rarity's story.

"I don't have anything left to give you, but... can I ask how it happened? Your... turning," he attempts to phrase.

Whatever good humor lingered on the demon's face douses so fast that Raihan nearly reaches out in sympathy before catching himself.

"..." It looks away, long hands flexing, tendons rasping over bone. "Details are fuzzy. Been far too long, and I ain't too keen on rememberin'. It weren't no walk in the park, I can say." Its voice hollows out, backed by an inaudible chorus of whispers that pushes the breeze around them and sends the mist swirling. "I know I ain't somethin' that's supposed to exist."

Sharp claws dig into pale flesh and black oozes from the wounds. Raihan's body instinctively wants to recoil from the substance that's the source of so much pain and suffering, but he smothers it down and lifts his hands to soothe from a safe distance.

"Hey, easy, easy!" If only he knew the thing's name, if it even has one...

It—he?—doesn't act like it heard him. "Don't belong nowhere, ain't helpin' anyone. Was never able to help anyone," it mutters. "All my fault that so much went wrong. Couldn't even save me own kin, ain't nothin' left of her, even to bury. Only grave I've got to visit is the one I should be in. It's me that should be in the ground. I don't belong here, not anywhere."

Hunching terribly, the demon grips its own arms tighter. Tarry blood rolls down its forearms and drips onto the earth, and Raihan swears he can hear the grass scream.

Damn it all. If this next move turns his bleeding heart from metaphorical to literal, it'll be his own damn fault.

Barreling past his own misgivings, Raihan strides forth and shoves his gloved hands through the roiling mass of hair, blindly groping for shoulders. It's like plunging his hands into arctic waters without feeling wet at all. An endless coil of writhing nothingness snakes through the gap of glove and sleeve and binds around his wrists, but he grits his teeth and grips what he wants without falter.

"Stop it! Hey!" He gives the thing—demon, person, experiment gone wrong, _whatever it is—_ a hard shake. It's a testament to how genuinely upset it is that his head remains on his shoulders. Haunted eyes snap to him, shadows of the past swimming within and scraping the surface.

"Look. I take it back. I don't need to know anything about what happened with you, you don't need to think about it. Just... let me ask you a few things first, okay?"

Wide-eyed and stunned speechless, it nods. Good. Good, they can get somewhere now. Somewhere that doesn't involve self-harm and reliving past trauma, that's nowhere Raihan needs to visit again in his lifetime.

"First of all... I apologize for being blunt, but I have to know this. Have you ever killed anyone?"

The demon hiccups and shakes its head. "Never. I ain't—I can't do that. Never harmed a hair on anybody's head. Swear down I ain't no killer."

"Okay. Good. That's very good." Either this demon was surrounded by loved ones during the transformation, or he was all alone... Raihan's not sure which scenario could be considered better, but he's not about to ask something that risky.

The tendrils choking his wrists and forearms loosen a smidge, and Raihan's own grasp loosens in relief. "Second question... If you didn't want to kill me, why'd you lunge at me earlier?"

"Thought I could scare ya off... at most knock ya out, woulda left me the time to do what I needed to do and then leave, no harm done to ya. Didn't realize you were a hunter 'til you dodged me, and then I knew I couldn't shake ya."

Story makes sense. Alright. This is going far better than he expected, even if he's been flying blind for the past ten minutes. Improvisation _is_ one of his strong suits, but even this is testing the limits of his ability.

"Well, I'm glad we didn't have to fight. We still don't have to fight. If what you're saying is true—and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I do believe you—then I've got no reason to harm you or send you anywhere."

"...You're a freak of an exorcist for believin' me. Can't say I ain't grateful for it, though," it sullenly says. "'Cos I got nowhere else I can be but here. Sendin' me to hell would be throwin' me to the dogs."

That's the third mention of a lack of a place to belong. Raihan can relate to that particular brand of loneliness. What a surprise that a demon could ever fall into that same limbo. He files that thought away for later.

If it's true this creature is harmless, then there's no need to banish it. There are certain creatures that count as pests that people love to have exorcised because they're ugly or annoying, but aren't necessarily harmful. Some are even lucky or beneficial to have around, but hey, if people pay to get rid of something, it's the duty of an exorcist to carry out the job.

Fuck... and that right there is his problem. Raihan took on this job to, verbatim, _get rid of the thing in the cemetery._

Oh. That makes it easy, then, doesn't it? He doesn't have to slay and banish to get rid of it. He just needs to vacate the demon from the premises and he can call it a night.

Where to put it, though... For all the quick wit and ire this poor thing showed, it's truly a sorrowful creature. Telling it to fuck off without a care for where it ends up would be heartless.

_Listen to me, sparing care for a demon... I'd be laughed out of the next conference if anyone saw this out of context._

"Last thing. I'd like to know what I might call you. Doesn't feel right to refer to you as 'demon' anymore."

The demon—argh, this is really getting old—sniffs and rubs at its arms. The wounds have already sealed and smoothed over into nothing, black blood dissolved into ash and snatched by the breeze of the night. "Apt, though, ain't it? 'S wha' I am."

"Just tell me what I can call you."

The demon—hopefully he doesn't have to call it that anymore—tilts his head. "Not gonna ask me my real name?"

"There's nothing I could do with it that would be good for you."

The smile that curls onto the demon's face reveals jaws lined with the uneven fangs of an anglerfish. For some twisted reason, all that comes to mind is _cute._ "In that case, call me Piers."

Piers... He could test right now if the name is real or merely a false moniker, but that would be a stupid move when he thinks they're building something like trust.

He releases Piers' shoulders and backs away to grant him some space. Black and white hair slithers free from under his coat sleeves, dragging along his scarred skin like they're reluctant to let him go.

"Raihan," he returns. Giving his name feels like signing away a piece of himself. In a way, he is. "My name is Raihan."

Piers blinks. It's the first time he's blinked all night, come to think of it, and Raihan notes the subtle flash of secondary lids. "You gave a demon your name directly. Thought you were a properly educated exorcist."

Embarrassment burns low on the back of his neck. "I am. I just wanted to extend my... goodwill."

Something akin to surprise flickers across Piers' face and soon compacts into a smirk. "Can I extend mine?"

That dreadful smile widens along with the opening of arms. It's a pending embrace—one that emits a strikingly similar vibe to an open coffin. Both want a body in them and know they'll get one eventually. There's something about that confidence that's alluring. Alright, he's already in deep. Might as well dive down deeper, but not without some measure of safety.

"Only if I get to have my knife."

"Sure. Take your security blanket and bring it in. Don't worry, love, I won't give you any reason to use it. I'm trustin' you too, that you won't stab me."

That's as good as it gets.

Raihan braces himself, grasps his blade just in case, and steps in. A frigid web of hair wraps tight around his back and reels him closer as a low chittering echoes around him.

Piers smells like seawater. Winter brine.

The strange cocoon pauses its tightening to leave a hand's width gap between them. This close, Piers' eyes are fathomless, ringed gates to a burning infinity that'll swallow him whole if he allows it. Raihan keeps himself on the edge, the solidity of the hilt of his knife keeping him from swaying and falling, but it's a tenuous thing.

"...For a demon, you're really pretty," he thoughtlessly says.

"I must be, for you to come so close so easily." A hand of bone and ice grazes up his spine and cups the back of his head. "How do you know I ain't some incubus tryin' to tempt you into beddin' me, and this wasn't some elaborate ruse to get you in my arms?"

"If you were an incubus, I'd already be shriveled to an empty husk and blown away in the wind."

A soft laugh, varnished with the weight of centuries of nothing worth laughing over does something funny to Raihan's chest. Something he dares not read into. "I think I really like you, Raihan." His name is purred.

Is this flirting? Somehow, it feels a lot like flirting. One other somehow, is that somehow... he doesn't mind it.

The talons resting against his skull contract and scratch, not heavily, but enough to throw shivers up his spine. He tightens his grip on his knife (when did it get so loose?), just to stop it from falling out of his hand.

"Raihan..." Why does his name sound so good coming from Piers? "You know that since you tagged your name onto me, I can find you wherever you go, right?"

"That was sort of the plan, yeah."

Piers hums. Then draws his hand forward, to cup Raihan's cheek. Chillier than any slice of autumn wind, it caresses his face, and he becomes sharply aware of how close they are, and the way Piers' eyes fall to consider his lips.

Suicidal as it may be, Raihan closes his eyes. And waits.

No murderizing happens. His throat remains untorn, eyes ungouged, heart left beating in his chest. All that changes for him is that his lips become numb from the cold of an icy kiss.

His hand drifts up and rests against a chest that's no doubt as hollow as a birdcage. No warmth, no beat, but not without worth. The lips against his are frigid, but not stiff; plush as he imagined, they mould to him, and whether they hunger for warmth, or hunger for _him,_ he knows not, and cares not.

As Raihan's arms fold around an emaciated waist and the kiss deepens thanks to him being unable to resist stealing a taste (brine again, strangely pleasant), some tiny grain of sanity pings against his focus.

_You're making out with him. Raihan, you've officially gone crazy._

Well, Raihan can hardly bring himself to care.

Sharp teeth nip into his tongue and do not draw blood. Only a sense of mischief. Piers is being gentle with him, he's reminded, and that concept burrows deep into his chest and wraps around his core, because when was the last time anyone was gentle with him? A low groan shudders out of him and he casts his knife aside and holds Piers tight against him, seeking more, eager to pour his warmth into this particular bundle of sharp corners and vacant spaces.

When they part, he's lightly panting, casting more warmth onto a mouth that doesn't share the same need to breathe.

"Not what you expected to be paid for tonight, eh?"

Shit, that's right, his job... He needs that money. Badly. In order to collect his payment, he needs to be able to say he fulfilled the client's expectations. The client wants the demon taken care of. In Raihan's mind, all that matters is getting Piers off the premises, which is a simple thing, really.

But. He wouldn't be Raihan if he didn't take simple solutions as far as they could go. Piers has nowhere to go? Raihan can give him a place, and only one comes to mind.

"You know... if you really don't have anywhere else to go, you could..." He strokes down a spine that's disturbingly tactile. "Think about coming home with me. It's a shabby place, but it's got thick walls and a roof that doesn't leak. The windows are small and I keep the curtains drawn all the time since I'm basically nocturnal, so no need to worry about sunlight hurting you. I will have to dismantle a few wards, though, and put away a bunch of the stuff that'll hurt you if you get too close, so you'd have to give me a minute to clean up before coming inside, and..."

Piers' eyes have dilated so much that all the dark sclera has been pushed away, bright irises reduced to a burning halo around the eclipse of enlarged pupil. It shouldn't be as cute as it is.

Raihan clears his throat and looks away. "Besides, it's my duty to keep an eye on you. I made the decision to not exorcize you, meaning you're my responsibility now. So, you better say yes and come with me."

The frail body in his arms shivers so hard that Raihan spares a glance downward, doing his best to be nonchalant. That resolve crumbles to bits the instant he sees two emotions he never thought he'd see in any demon's eyes: hope, and joy.

"A-Aye, I'll come with you. You give me a place to stay and I'll stay put. I don't take up much space. I'll haunt yer cupboards, even. Keep rats away and everythin'."

"Whoa, no need to go that far." He chuckles, and because he's always wanted to do this, lifts a hand and rubs one of the horns curving from Piers' skull. The effect is immediate; Piers' eyes close and he tilts his head into the touch with a raspy chirrup. "You're not my pet."

A single eye slyly cracks open. "Why're you pettin' me like one, then?"

Face warm, Raihan bites his lip and removes his hand. "Sorry."

"Oh, make no mistake, love, I don't mind a pat here and there." Piers' lanky arms wind up around his neck and soon a skinny chest rubs against him. "Don't mind touches at all. Been so long since anyone's shared anythin' with me."

"Same boat, huh," he says under his breath. A tendril of hair curls beneath his chin and he's suddenly very, very eager to wrap things up and go home, demon in tow.

"I need to talk to the priest who called me out here. Tell him that you're gone and won't be coming back. It's not dishonest."

"Cunning thing, ain't ya. I like it."

Piers withdraws from around him, and it's a rather lengthy process given just how much the demon wrapped around his body.

"You go wrap up yer work, love. I can't follow you into that church." Piers' tail swishes. "...You'll come back out for me, aye?"

"Aye," he repeats. A ripple of the mantle of air-suspended hair betrays a small relief, that Raihan smiles in response to. "Don't worry, Piers. I'm a man of my word, and my word says that I'm taking you home."

**Author's Note:**

> raihan you can't just go around picking up stray demons and taking them home to your apartment (that only has one bed i might add), what will the neighbors think
> 
> EDIT 31-OCT-2020: Thank you [Lagt](https://twitter.com/Lagt32635680) for the lovely [fanart](https://twitter.com/Lagt32635680/status/1322600340043300869) of my demon Piers!! Love the atmosphere of the piece!


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